The Conduct Revision Task Force met yesterday Monday, November 8 in a cramped conference room in Sproul Hall. Upon entering the door, I received a binder consisting of previous recommendations from the 2003 task force that made recommendations to the code, the most recent code of conduct, statistics from the Center for Student Conduct, the Nov. 20th Police Review Board Executive Summary, and a few miscellaneous emails.
This was the first meeting of the 19-person task force and was mainly introductory, although there was a fair amount of philosophical conversation followed by dividing the task force into sub-committees. We went around and gave brief introductions, the people serving on the task force include:
1. Harry Le Grande, Co-Chair, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
2. Bob Jacobsen, Co-Chair, Academic Senate Vice Chair and Professor
3. Chris Patti, Chief Campus Counsel
4. Christina Gonzales, Associate Dean of Students
5. Mitch Celaya, UC Police Department
6. Diane Hill, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs, Graduate Division
7. Kevin Padian, Faculty
8. Sandra Smith, Faculty
9. Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, Faculty
10. David Presti, Faculty, Academic Senate COMS
11. Lia Fernald, Faculty, Academic Senate COMS
12. Herbert Strauss, Faculty, Academic Senate COMS
13. Elliot Goldstein, Student, ASUC
14. Waseem Salahi, Student, ASUC
15. Erich Matthes Student, Graduate Assembly
16. Neil Satterlund, Student, Graduate Assembly, Campus Rights Project
17. Samar Shah, Chief of Staff, Student Advocate's Office
18. Udani Kadurugamuwa, Conduct Director, Student Advocate's Office
19. Ovsanna Khachikian Student, VSCAC
Opening remarks were made by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer, who ordered the creation of the task force and whom the committee will ultimately report its recommendations to. Mr. Breslauer read the charge of the task force (see first posting) which is to "not review the Code in its entirety but will specifically address six areas: (1) Code timelines, (2) Communication process, (3) decision right and representation at various stages of the conduct process, (4) Capacity of Student Conduct Department, (5) consequences and sanctions, (6) congruence with best practices on other college campuses.
Then the Co-Chairs, Professor Jacobson and Vice Chancellor Le Grande gave opening remarks on how the task force would operate. The task force will try to work on a consensus basis rather then voting up or down individual policies and clauses. It was also noted that the task force has a relatively short deadline - Spring 2011.
Professor Jacobson served on the task force which recommended revisions to the code in 2003, and Professor Kevin Padian served on a similar task force in the 90's.
About 45 minutes into the hour and half meeting we entered a longer conversation about how to divide the task force into sub-committees, the idea being that we could divide the six "areas" and divide the group into two. The conversation meandered around possible divisions of the areas and the categories that they represented while hitting on grander themes about various conduct philosophies. Finally we split into Team A that would focus on (1) Code timelines, (2) Communication process, and (5) consequences and sanctions. And Team B which would focus on (3) decision right and representation at various stages of the conduct process, (4) Capacity of Student Conduct Department. It would noted that area (6) congruence with best practices on other college campuses really underlies all of the other areas and therefore both groups would look at other colleges conduct practices.
The sub-committees will meet soon and are being organized by students from the Student Advocates Office. Admittedly there will be quite a lot of overlap between the two sub-committees, and that is why the committee of the whole will serve as a check process on the progress of the subcommittees.
Finally we discussed communication efforts by the task force, transparency, and confidentiality. There was mention of setting up a bSpace account where students and faculty can give feedback to the committee and answer questions. Additionally, the Student Advocates Office will be hosting a series of Townhall forums on the Conduct Revision process. This blog is my own attempt at providing transparency and keeping everyone updated on the progress of the task force. However I am bound by confidentiality on the current thinking-processes of the task force and will be diligent in respecting my fellow committee members as I blog.
I mentioned that there was talk about various conduct philosophies, this to me is the truly fascinating aspect of serving on a committee like this. Five varying philosophies were described: (1) Restorative Justice Model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_Justice) (2) Spectrum Model, and I'm not sure what this is (3) in loco parentis model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis) (4) the legalistic model that mirrors the judicial courts outside of the university, "preparing students for the outside world" (5) the Educational Model, which is what Berkeley claims to have now, this currently favored model across higher education campuses seeks to get students to admit they're wrong and make the conduct process a learning process ie consequences may be writing an essay. However, it was noted during discussion that in the case of civil disobedience the educational model can fail, given that protesting is an act of conscience and one cannot be told their conscience is "wrong" and needs to be "educated".
Critics of UCB's Conduct Process say that the rhetoric of the process being "educational" is being use to skirt rights in gathering evidence and not giving students the right to due process, and yet the consequences students are being given is punitive in nature. This is something I imagine will come up a great deal throughout this process.
The next meeting dates for the whole task force have been decided, they will be November 29th and December 6th. Stay posted!
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